asperitas (roughness): acerbitas (bitterness, sour, oppressive nature or quality): iniquitas (oppressiveness, oppressing nature or quality; e.g., improper severity of a person). Harshness of character, animus durus, animi duritas, ingenium durum (hardness of heart): severitas dura (inexorable severity): animi atrocitas (inhumanity of disposition; opposed to humanitas et misericordia): austeritas (perhaps not prae-Augustan; of harshness to the taste, vini, etc.; also, austeritas nimia, Col., ; also, figuratively, with reference to colors unpleasantly dark, and to stern strictness of conduct; opposed to comitas, Quint.). You find no harshness of expression in Herodotus. Herodotus sine ullis salebris fluit.